The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus wherein digital images are recorded on an image recording medium represented by an silver halide light-sensitive material, and the image recording medium is cut to a prescribed finished print size.
In the conventional photo-finishing service, especially the print service from negative films, prints requested by a customer have been made from the negative films brought by the customer, in accordance with requests of the customer in terms of a print size and a quantity of prints.
Recently, in particular, a panoramic size and a hivision size which are different from the conventional sizes have made their appearance, and in addition to that, there still is a demand for a larger size of a customer's favorite image, resulting in increasing variation of print sizes. For coping with the above-mentioned print sizes, several kinds of papers (photographic papers) which differ from each other in terms of width have been prepared in photo-finishing laboratories, and they have been switched depending on an order of a customer.
However, due to the increasing variation of print sizes mentioned above, an amount of jobs to switch to the desired width of paper is increased, which therefore worsens an efficiency of the work of an operator for prints, and requires more space for many cartridges each containing paper of different width, and further, paper rolls with a special width that is rarely requested need to be stored, which has been a problem because it is not preferable from the viewpoint of paper storage space and paper storage stability.
Now, there is considered a method to output prints with various sizes from a large size to a normal size from a paper roll with a single width. However, when a conventional exposure method (an analog exposure method) is employed, it has required a complicated exposure method to repeat exposure while shielding a part of the paper against light. Therefore, the method mentioned above was not used when a large amount of prints are requested.
Incidentally, it has become possible to simply record plural images on a sheet of paper, by conducting image processing such as image composition before imagewise exposure, through a system for recording images on a pixel unit based on a digital signal. Therefore, by recording one image on a sheet of paper when a large size print is requested, and by recording plural images on a sheet of paper when small-sized prints are requested, stock of papers with a single width or a few kinds of width makes it possible to prepare prints having no waste on the paper.
However, even in the system mentioned above, it is still difficult to obtain conventional and common print sizes which are desired by a customer. Namely, there has been no way but to return to a customer a print wherein plural images which are not of a common print size are mixed, or to return to a customer after cutting a finished sheet of paper having thereon plural recorded images by a separate device or manually, for making the print size to be a common print size.
On the other hand, with regard to an image apparatus wherein a light-sensitive material, especially a silver halide light-sensitive material is subjected to imagewise exposure based on certain image information, there has been known a method employing a print head (an array head) having thereon a plurality of recording elements (light sources), as a method having various merits such as those that the apparatus is inexpensive and compact and a large size print can be generated easily.
As the print head mentioned above, there has been proposed an apparatus employing a vacuum fluorescent tube light source called a VFPH (Vacuum Fluorescent Print Head). The vacuum fluorescent tube light source has characteristics that high brightness can be obtained easily, the light source can responds at high speed, and the apparatus can be made thin, and zinc oxide phosphor is used for the fluorescent tube mainly from the viewpoint of durability.
On the other hand, there are some cases where an LED array light source is used as the above-mentioned print head, and for a red color, in particular, it is possible to manufacture, in a photomask method, a high density array that is as high as 300 dpi or 400 dpi. For example, it is possible to employ an arrangement wherein an LED array is used as a red light source and the above-mentioned VFPH is used as a green light source and a blue light source.
However, print making by means of aforesaid array exposure method has the following problems.
Namely, in a conventional analog printer, the exposure time per a printing area is almost constant, and it is possible to make, without having any serious disadvantages in terms of time, prints of normal sizes which are current main products (127 mm.times.89 mm, 152 mm.times.102 mm etc.) and large-sized prints (for example, the exposure time for a print whose area is one fourth that of a large-sized print is also one fourth the exposure time for the large-sized print). In the array exposure method, however, when a narrow-width paper roll is used for making normal-sized prints, more disadvantages in terms of time are caused for making normal-sized prints than in making large-sized prints, because exposure is performed without using a part of recording elements.
For example, when making a print having one fourth area of a large print on a paper having one half width, an analog exposure system can make the print with about one fourth exposure time as stated above. In the case of an array exposure system, however, the exposure time is only about one half, and the time which is twice that in the analog exposure system is required, which means that the exposure efficiency obtained is only one half in the analog exposure system.
For the reasons mentioned above, it is necessary to solve the problem of disadvantages in terms of time, and it has been considered therefore that plural images are laid out and composed on a sheet of paper to be outputted so that plural images may be recorded simultaneously in the direction of arrangement of array elements.
As stated above, however, a print wherein plural images are laid out and composed on a sheet of paper makes it difficult to obtain a print in a common size which is requested by a customer. Namely, there still remains the problem that there has been no way but to return to a customer a print wherein plural images which are not of a common print size are mixed, or to return to a customer after cutting, by a separate device or manually, a sheet of paper having thereon plural recorded images in a common print size for making the print size to be a common print size.
The problem to be solved in the invention is that an advantage specific to a digital exposure system that plural images can be recorded in a short period of time in a given layout is canceled out by the complicated work required to obtain common print sizes requested.